Familial Support Is Vital To Recovery

To simply put it, you must try and be understanding. You must be informed. You must try to reach out for support and work closely with your loved one’s treatment team. Try to find resources. Try to work on setting realistic expectations. Try and stay positive for your loved one, who is consistently combating a small creature in their head. People living with a mental illness experience stigma and stereotypes surrounding their diagnoses that can spur embarrassment, anger, hopelessness, and fear. Try your best to destroy that stigma. Stray away from saying things like, “She’s crazy. He’s crazy. They’re schizo. They’re bipolar." Instead of ripping apart stigma at the seams, that kind of talk simply encourages the idea that mental illness is an identity, or a mentality. Inform yourself, because education is the true foundation of support. Families that are provided with education and are involved in the treatment process, notice that their loved ones experienced a reduction in symptoms and relapse. The family environment will naturally improve, and it is healthy for the patient. For example, without information and education, it’s difficult for families and friends to comprehend and understand the seriousness of the symptoms, such as horrifying thoughts and hallucinations correlated with Schizophrenia, or suicidal thoughts associated with severe depression. It’s common for families to wonder why their loved ones just can’t snap out of it. Not understanding how the illness functions and the symptoms will be hard on you and your loved one. Look into family therapy sessions, connect with your loved one’s therapist and psychiatrist, overall, be involved with the process, and when it gets hard, reach out for support.

Things will inevitably become unstable, and to speak out about it is healthy. Sometimes stigma can prevent families from finding resources and talking about it, but it gets hard for everyone. Through support can you gain understanding and strength. Find resources! There are an abundance of books and articles written from the perspective of a person living with a mental illness or a person living with a loved one that has a mental illness. Talk to your loved one’s therapist or psychologist.

Supporting a loved one through a diagnosis and beyond is undeniably difficult, but there are manifested ways to help a loved one living with a mental illness. While that is a difficult reality, medications have improved, and therapy and new evidence-based psychotherapeutic inventions have proven to be powerful and effective.

People living with mental illness still have an identity and a voice. Spur conversations with your loved one in an open and honest manner. Ask what they’re feeling, struggling with, and if they’d like anything from you. Work with them to set realistic expectations. Praise your loved ones on their progress and vigor. It’s hard, and through the flood of emotions and hardships and dark emotions, there’s a light.

10 Benefits of Using CBD Oil for Pets

Cannabis herb has grabbed the attention of vets and researchers for offering a lot as far as the health and well-being of the animals is concerned. Just as the CBD has proved to be beneficial for the humans, many studies have proved that it can benefit the animals too with its health-enhancing and life-saving benefits. Let’s take you through ten benefits of this herb for animals which is usually misunderstood so far to clear the air.

1. Increases Appetite and Resolves Nausea

If an animal is having trouble eating or is suffering from nausea and vomits then CBD might be the solution for it as it increases the appetite and treats nausea caused by toxins.

2. Reduces Anxiety

If an animal is suffering from separation anxiety, then it might benefit from the anxiety-relieving property of the CBD oil. Since the herb has also proved beneficial in reducing anxiety related issues in humans including panic disorders and PTSD and hence can also be used for animals.

3. Fights Cancer

CBD and other chemicals found in cannabis have an antitumor effect which prevents the growth of cancerous cells and increases the tumor cell death. Therefore, it can be used in combination with the conventional treatment to enhance its effects and inhibit the growth of cancer cells.

4. Treats Seizures

Animals with seizures are mostly treated with drugs that while helping to control seizures cause potential damage to other organs like the liver. While CBD helps to treat seizures without such side effects.

5. Relieves Pain

CBD oil is also beneficial in relieving the pain effectively as it has anti-inflammatory properties, so it has proved to reduce pain by decreasing the inflammation.

6. Not Psychoactive

CBD (cannabidiol) and THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) are compounds found in cannabis and hemp, and THC is responsible for the psychoactive properties of marijuana. However, CBD oil is mostly without the THC which means the animal wouldn’t get high.

7. Helps with Neurodegenerative Diseases

CBD shows a lot of potential for animals with degenerative nerve issues. Studies have shown it to be beneficial in preventing cell death in the brain which is caused by toxins and free radicals in animals.

8. Helps With Inflammatory Bowel Disease

CBD has antibiotic properties which according to research have proved to be helpful in preventing colitis and treating the inflammatory bowel disease.

9. Reduces Chronic Inflammation

CBD has proven to be helpful in reducing the release and production of the inflammatory cytokines which may cause in allergies and hypersensitivities in animals. It can decrease chronic inflammation while acting as a powerful antioxidant.

10. Promotes Cardiovascular Health

CBD is also linked to heart health as studies have shown that it helps with balancing heart rate by reducing the damage from damaged blood vessels and reducing blood pressure.

These are some of the amazing health benefits that CBD oil can offer the animals. But it would be imperative to involve a vet before going ahead with treating the animals with the CBD.

Parkland, Florida's Mass Shooting Taught Me To Expect Catastrophes While Keeping An Open Mind And Heart

I've been watching the local and national news ever since I was old enough to look at a screen. It's all part of a daily routine that, save school breaks and Sundays, has not been broken in years. Every morning, my brother and I would wake up a good hour and a half before school to my father's call. My family isn't talkative in the mornings, so my father would switch on the TV, and we'd all begin the day with a healthy dose of WSBTV'S Channel 2 Action News. Then, the clock would strike 7 a.m., and we'd spend the remainder of our pre-school morning watching ABC's Good Morning America.

The thing about watching that much news (besides being more well-informed than most of my elementary-aged and middle-school aged peers) is that one gets accustomed to hearing a plethora of local and national and international tragedies on a daily basis. Missing children on Monday, mystery murders on Tuesday, tragic car crashes on Wednesday, thieves on Thursday, corpses of the missing children found on Friday and so on. As I was born post-Columbine, I could depend on hearing of school shootings monthly or so with varying degrees of success.

While the widely repeated "no news is good news" isn't strictly true, it was perhaps 99 percent true for me, and over time, I've become desensitized to tragic events to an alarming degree.

When I first heard about the school shooting through one of Alpharetta Odyssey teammates, I couldn't even be bothered to look it up. 17 dead, she said. Tragic, I thought, before realizing that it had been a while since there was a successful school shooting. With how common they've become, it felt like we had one long overdue.

As my community peers expressed their shock at humanity's general decline, I had two epiphanies in subsequent order.

First, I noticed how people avoided liking my post like they were with everyone else’s because of how disturbing the concept of normalizing something as horrific as school shootings is. Second, I soon realized that my attitude isn't was nearly as disturbing as it was pragmatic.

It's horrible that I've learned to normalize the idea that some humans simply lack hearts. But once you get past the initial implication associated with the idea, you will realize how ignorant we are to continue to be shocked every time something slightly more tragic happens at this point in time. I’m writing this on February 14, 2018 — Valentine's Day. We are only one and a half months into 2018, and there have been 18 school shootings (of varying degrees of success) in the America.

It's about time we start learning to expect situations like this and prepare ourselves accordingly, like the way we do for other unexpected disasters, such as fires and tornado warnings. And while it can be truly difficult to implement a feasible school-wide system against the ingenuity of the determined heartless, we should replace the mentality "Oh, it's never going to happen to me," with "It might happen to me." (But in moderation. There's also something to be said about being so afraid of possibly dying that one simply fails to live.)

It's truly tragic that we have to resort to such a mentality. But then again, it would be much more tragic to actually die without ever having considered that dying is a very real possibility.

With that all said, however, do not start singling out people you may see as potential school shooters. That is an unsolicited assumption, and you seriously do not know that person as well as him/herself. Only that person can know if they are capable of shooting up a school. Second, pointing out certain people and alienating them based on assumptions might actually be the direct cause of the suspected person shooting up a school. Driving a person into a corner puts everyone in danger.

I truly applaud the people who continue to believe the best in people, despite events like this occurring. Those are the people who let their guards down and are open-minded, regardless. And though it may seem counter intuitive, it is actually people like these who are the best remedy to the prevention of school shootings. People with true friends (or at least people who have someone to reach out to, at the very least) are much less likely to become the perpetrators of such a catastrophic scenario with such a collateral ending.

Nevertheless, we should learn to expect catastrophes, while also keeping open minds and open hearts. I know. It's not easy. But for the sake of everyone, know that the effort is worth it.